Tag Archives: Putin

War fatigue sets in

Allow me this brief admission, of which I am not proud, to be sure: I am suffering from early onset of “war fatigue.” Yes, the Ukraine-Russia war has worn me out.

Understand this, though. Our hearts are breaking over the suffering that Russia’s bombing and artillery attacks are inflicting on people who are simply trying to defend their homeland against an invading military force. It’s not that I am going to dismiss their suffering and wring my hands over having to watch it on TV.

It’s merely that the brave journalists who are reporting from the front have saturated me with news that is beginning to sound repetitive. Russians are escalating their attacks; they are hitting civilian targets; they are inflicting casualties among civilians, including defenseless children; those who die are being buried in mass graves; Vladimir Putin keeps shunning pleas to stop the invasion. Over and over again.

We had our granddaughter with us for a couple of nights. My wife made the decision to shield her from the news.

Does this mean that High Plains Blogger is taking a break from commenting on information that leaks into your blogger’s noggin? Hah! Hardly.

I am likely to end my news boycott soon, given that I happen to be addicted to the news. I’ll certainly divert my attention fully to this unfolding story when something significant happens. The war might expand into NATO nations; Putin might deploy chemical weapons; President Biden might decide to ratchet up sanctions even more.

Or, and this would be the best news, there could be a cease-fire that paves a clear path to a peace treaty.

Until any of that happens, I’m tuning out the war … for now.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Russia: third-rate power

Barry McCaffrey knows military matters better than just about anyone on Earth. I mean, the guy served combat tours in Vietnam, then rose through the ranks to get four stars pinned on his uniform. He served was a division commander and then led the Central Command in the Middle East.

So … when retired Army Gen. McCaffrey describes Russia as a “third-rate military power,” I tend to believe him. He does offer an important caveat, which is that Russia possesses a first-rate nuclear arsenal. As for its conventional fighting prowess, McCaffrey isn’t impressed with the way the Russians fight conventional battles.

All of this is my way of suggesting that McCaffrey could be onto something when he suggests that Ukraine might be able to earn enough of a battlefield stalemate against the Russian aggressors to force the Russian despot Vladimir Putin to seek some sort of “exit ramp” off the field of battle.

I have said all along — and I don’t proclaim to have any special knowledge of this — that Ukraine isn’t defenseless against the Russian onslaught. Ukraine does have a significant army and air force. It has been shooting down Russian aircraft and it certainly has inflicted a significant number of casualties among Russian personnel.

Putin well might have deluded himself into thinking the Russian armed forces would waltz into Kyiv, declare victory and then set up a puppet government all in short order. That ain’t happening.

Which takes me back to the start of this post. If the Russians are a third-rate conventional military power, what is their dictator thinking when he sends his personnel into battle against a force determined to protect its homeland against naked aggression?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Ukrainian president: real-life hero

I have to join the growing chorus of supporters around the world who are singing the praises of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskyy.

A young man who entered politics after a career as a comic and an actor has emerged as a towering figure of strength in leading his country’s resistance against the Russian aggressors.

Heroes often are the product of the circumstances into which they are thrust. Zellenskyy didn’t ask to become a hero; it just fell on him when the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, decided he wanted to take Ukraine back, return it to the fold of the former Evil Empire. Putin acted for reasons that defy reason, logic and all that is rational.

Zellenskyy could have fled his country. He could have led a government in exile. He chose instead to stay and to lead from ground zero in the conflict.

He has risen to an enormous challenge. The Ukraine’s brave leader is made of the sternest stuff imaginable. I am going to pray hard for the president and his countrymen and women.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

War is pure hell

If only there were enough people alive today who remember the horrifying cost of a global land war, which has broken out once again in eastern Europe. Those who might have been alive as children the last time total war broke out in Europe might be able to recall the horror of it all.

It was more than 80 years ago when Europe became engulfed in war. Virtually the entire continent was involved and the death count was incalculable.

Now, what does this mean to Russians and Ukrainians? It means that because of Vladimir Putin’s political ambition the two countries are likely to revisit the horror of that terrible long-ago era.

I should point out that Putin is too young to remember what his own country suffered when it fought against the invaders who sought to conquer what was known then as the Soviet Union. Perhaps it is possible he might have thought differently about seeking to re-take Ukraine had he any real-time knowledge of what his parents and grandparents endured during that global conflict.

U.S. Army Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman told us that “War is hell.” Indeed, there is nothing that compares to hell, but war comes as close as anything we humans can experience in our worldly lives.

We are watching a new war break out. Those who have experienced war up close are shuddering at the thought of Russians and Ukrainians fighting each other.

If only there were enough human beings alive today who remember the destruction that all-out war produces … then, we might have people in power who simply refuse to take us down that dangerous road to ruin.

If only …

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Rookie pol makes ass of himself

Ronny Jackson is new to this game of politics, but barely a year into his gig as a member of Congress he has established himself as a darling of the far-right wing of the Republican Party, which makes his comments about the Russia-Ukraine war worthy of a brief retort from your friendly blogger.

Jackson, who represents the 13th Congressional District of the Texas Panhandle, said this via Twitter about the invasion that began just a few hours ago:

WHERE IS JOE BIDEN!? Is he even AWAKE right now!? The absence of leadership from this White House is SICKENING! This war should’ve NEVER happened!

Hmm. Wow! There you have the ramblings of a former Navy flag officer, a former physician and a carpetbagger who moved to Amarillo specifically to run for political office. He detests President Biden, who I actually wonder if he gives a crap about what this neophyte politician says about him. Joe Biden has many bigger and more important issues to concern himself.

However, Jackson does have a following — I presume. He did get elected to Congress after trumpeting his close ties to The Donald. Furthermore, the ex-doc keeps offering peanut-gallery diagnoses challenging Joe Biden’s mental acuity. Now, when the president of the United States is trying to rally the nation to his resistance to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by the tyrant who runs Russia, Ronny Jackson provides this kind of brainless rebuke of the commander in chief.

I hope my friends in the Texas Panhandle are proud of themselves for sending this nitwit to Congress.

If I could ask Jackson any question at this moment, it would be: How would you have prevented Putin from invading Ukraine?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

World has flipped

What in the name of political sanity has happened to this old world of ours? I mean, we have Republicans and conservative media voices speaking fondly of a Russian dictator while Democrats and more progressive media voices are yelling loudly to get tough with the strongman.

There once was a time when the roles were reversed. No longer, folks.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has positioned his forces to invade Ukraine. A former GOP president has declared Putin to be a “genius” for the way he is preparing for the bloodbath. The current Democratic president is vowing punishing sanctions on Russia if Putin goes through with what the whole world believes he will do.

I remember the age of the Evil Empire that became the target of scorn and anger from Republicans in Congress and the president of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Democrats were seen as being squishy on the communists.

Now it’s the Democrats who are staking out tough-guy positions against the Soviet descendants and Republicans are questioning why the president is all fired up about seeking to stop the Russian advance on Ukraine.

What the … ?

I can’t figure this out, other than linking all of this to the arrival of The Donald on our political scene. He cozied up to the strongman and actually denigrated our intelligence network’s assertion that Russia interfered in our 2016 election.

Hmm. Therein might be Donald’s enduring legacy. He has helped flip the political calculus totally on its ear. Frankly, I prefer the side that remains angry with Putin and the Russians.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

No surprise that Trump would praise Putin

Does anyone really profess to be surprised or amazed that Donald Trump would heap praise on Vladimir Putin over his attempted takeover of a sovereign nation?

Donald, let us remember, once referred to North Korean Marxist dictator Kim Jong Un as a “smart cookie,” and professed to have “fallen in love” with the guy who starves his people to death while living in luxury and spending lots of money developing nuclear weapons.

He also has lamented how strongmen in other countries get tons of praise from local media, apparently ignoring the obvious fact that the government in those countries control the media; that ain’t the case in the United States of America, where the nation’s founders took great care to ensure that the media are free of government interference.

Now he calls his pal Vlad’s declaring the independence of two breakaway Ukraine provinces “savvy” for making that statement. All Putin did was provoke President Biden into invoking economic sanctions against Russia.

Yeah, Donald loves dictators. He wishes he could become one of them. Indeed, he made an effort at it on 1/6 in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The dipsh** should be heading for prison.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Putin’s launches frightening power quest

Vladimir Putin’s lust for power is an astonishing sight to behold as the world awaits what appears to be coming: a violent invasion of a sovereign nation.

The Russian dictator is concocting excuses to invade Ukraine, a nation that once belonged to the Soviet Union’s empire of states, but which has established itself as an important independent nation on the western border of what is now the Russian Federation.

Putin wants it back. He appears set to send in the armed forces on a beeline to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city. He believes he will take control of the city of 2.8 million residents in short order. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

President Biden has done a good job of gathering allied support in leveling stern and damaging economic sanctions against Putin and the Russian economy. Germany has announced plans to shut down a natural gas pipeline from Russia, which is going to inflict serious harm to Putin’s nation. Biden is set to lower the economic boom on Russia as well, now that the window for a diplomatic solution appears to be closing rapidly.

Through it all, though, we have Vladimir Putin not giving a damn about what all this means to his people, to his standing among world leaders or to his legacy. He’s a bad dude to be sure.

Putin’s history of evil intent is clear, as he once led the Soviet spy agency, the KGB, during the Cold War. Thus, reports that he plans to enact some sort of “ethnic cleansing” in Ukraine if his troops take over the country should not surprise anyone.

I know there isn’t a damn thing on Earth I can do about any of this, other than to express my extreme displeasure over the danger that this tinhorn despot is able to place on the world we all inhabit.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Who is Vlad Putin?

Just as I vowed when he got elected U.S. president that I wouldn’t link the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively, I am having similar pangs to resist using the term “president” to refer to Vladimir Putin, the goon and deep-cover spy who runs Russia.

Vladimir Putin is a thug. He is a killer. He once ran the KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency. He’s a bad dude. As in really, really bad, man.

Yeah, he has been elected president. Do you believe those elections were as free and fair as those we conduct in this country? Hell, no! Putin has rewritten the rules to in effect make himself a lifetime leader.

His “rigging” of elections in Russia makes me wonder something about his best American pal, Donald J. Trump. Why hasn’t Trump bellowed and blustered about how the Russians rig their elections, rather than denigrating the U.S. electoral system? If the ex-Liar in Chief wants an example of corrupt elections, he needs to focus his fire on how the Russians keep electing Putin. Oh, wait. Trump wanted to become friends with Putin, and he cannot be Vlad’s BFF by criticizing the system that keeps returning him to power in the Kremlin.

I believe I’ll keep resisting using the term “president” to refer to the Russian leader. “President” is a title I reserve for legitimately elected leaders or leaders who don’t bring shame and disgust to their high office. Donald Trump fits the latter description to a “t” and there’s nothing legit about how Vladimir Putin attained the office he now occupies.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

Russians have pals … on the right!

OK, let me see if I have this correct. The Republican Party that once vilified Russians as being part of an Evil Empire, whose president once muttered into an open mic that he would launch missiles at the Soviet Union in “five minutes,” and who kept their grip on power by refusing to give the enemy any quarter is now in bed with the latest Russian dictator.

GOP members of Congress along with their friends in the right-wing media are criticizing President Biden’s actions against the Russians, contending that Ukraine is the real villain in the growing crisis in Europe.

Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush 41 are spinning in their graves at this moment.

We are hearing next to nothing from the right-wingers among us criticizing the actions of Vladimir Putin, who is threatening all-out war against Ukraine. The nut jobs on the right instead are criticizing the Democratic U.S. president for, um, threatening to levy stiff, punishing sanctions on Russians if they launch an invasion of Ukraine.

Those of us who remember the Cold War also remember a time when GOP politicians took great pride in standing firm against tyrants such as those who ruled the Soviet Union, which later returned to just being ol’ Russia after the collapse of communism in the early 1990s. Yes, some of expressed hope then that Russia would follow the model set by the United States and many nations in western Europe. Alas, it didn’t happen. We are dealing now with yet another strongman in the form of Putin, who has declared that the fall of the USSR was his country’s darkest historic moment.

What in the world am I missing here?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com